gave special thanks to God for this great deliverance. The garrison were right jovial in their way and jested, at the cost of Tilly, who had wasted so much time in the fruitless effort to subdue the town. "Magdeburg fall a prey to this dastard Austrian !—never while a hand remains to grasp a falchion

'And let me the cannikin clink, clink,

And let me the cannikin clink;

A soldier's a man,

A life's but a span,

Why, then let a soldier drink.'"

Who can blame the town guard if they kept holiday that night? they had kept watch and ward through many a weary night. Now the danger was over they had nothing to fear; Gustavus Adolphus would soon be in their midst.

Had the usual precautions been observed, and that untiring vigilance maintained which had characterised the garrison throughout the siege, a great calamity would have been spared. In the darkness and silence of the night a few troopers stole down to the walls of Magdeburg, and took cognizance of the state of the city so far as they were able. There was the stillness of death over the old town. No measured tread of sentinel, no watchword challenge, not even the bay of a dog-Magdeburg slept, and the silence was only broken by the musical chimes from the cathedral tower. The troopers having satisfied themselves that the city was unguarded, departed with the news, and about an hour before dawn on the morning of the 10th of May, a large detachment of Tilly's army came back to Magdeburg; they crept forward stealthily, part of the darkness -apparitions that seemed to grow out of the darkness; lanterns were borne by a few of the troopers, and many carried scaling ladders. They crossed the dry ditch, and gathered in great force under the walls that had so long defied their guns; they planted their ladders, and a picked number of veterans ascended and made good their footing on the rampart. Signalling to those below that all was well, they were speedily joined by a larger number of troopers, and their first act was to surprise the sleeping sentries, and slay them before they could raise an alarm.

The work they had come to accomplish was then begun. The alarm was raised just as the grey dawn was yielding to the roseate tint of morning, and a wild cry-the shriek of despair-told them that the enemy were within the city.

While the gates were flung open, and a body of cavalry charged up the

principal thoroughfare, the soldiers who had scaled the walls busied themselves in butchering. In vain the garrison attempted resistance. They were only partially aware of the real extent of their danger-suddenly roused from their sleep, some of them but half roused, all of them bewildered by surprise and terror. Their ranks were broken, they were put to flight, pursued, cut down, hunted from place to place, and brutally murdered when they cried for quarter.

In the meanwhile the houses of the wealthiest citizens were rifled, the inhabitants put to death, and the buildings fired. There was no sparing, no respect for age or sex-the mother was slaughtered in the midst of her terrified children, or cruelly rescued to see each of her darlings slain, herself the last victim. The troopers were diabolical in their merciless ingenuity they revelled in the horrible outrages they committed. They celebrated their bloody saturnalia, and joined their coarse jests and mocking laughter to the entreaties of their miserable victims. Scores were hurled into the Elbe-driven into the river at the sword's point, hunted to death; a very large number were consumed in their houses— birds burnt in their nests-the assassins driving those who attempted to escape back into the flames, seizing an infant from its mother's arms, and casting it on a heap of blazing furniture, holding her fast to see her child die. Scores of women, in the great terror which seized on them when the news spread that the enemy were within the walls, had fled for refuge in a church. Even Attila had some respect for holy things and holy places, and, perhaps, they thought that the Austrians might spare them as they knelt before God's altar. The troopers closed the doors of the church, and set the building on fire. women rose shrill and piercing above the roar of the fire and the shrieks of the people without. But there was no mercy for them: they were to be sacrificed as a burnt offering—a human holocaust to Austrian despotism. Outside another church fifty-three women were afterwards found together in a ghastly group, each with her head severed from her body.

The frantic cries of the

Every man who entered the city that day seemed devil-inspired. Blood and plunder were what they all sought; but they indulged their ferocious passions by every kind of gratuitous cruelty, some of them binding young and beautiful women to their saddle girths, and bearing them through all the horrors of that frightful day.

There is no counterpart in modern history to the outrages committed

during the sack of Magdeburg, except that of the Sepoys in India"putrid Delhi" is the only instance which at all approaches a parallel. Tilly, the savage fanatic, wrote to the Emperor an exulting despatch, in which he said :-"Never since the destruction of Troy and Jerusalem has there been such a victory." Some of his own officers, heart-sickened by

the sights they beheld, besought him to put a stop to the massacre, but. he answered:-"Give the soldiers another hour or two and then come to me again."

Another hour or two, and the streets were running with blood, and all quarters of the city in flames. One petition only would Tilly grant, and

that was the sparing of the cathedral at the special request of his old schoolfellow, Canon Bake.

Thirty thousand persons perished during the massacre. So long did it require to clear the streets of the dead, that five days elapsed before Tilly made his triumphant entry. Nearly seven thousand corpses were thrown into the Elbe. Only one hundred and thirty-nine houses were left

standing.

A convulsive shudder thrilled Europe at the news of the fate of Magdeburg. And as you visit the city to-day you are reminded of that frightful drama. The cathedral spared by Tilly-one of the noblest Gothic

edifices in Germany-still lifts its beautiful pyramidal tower, and is still rich in art treasures-and there you may see Tilly's helmet and gloves. The gate by which he entered the town has been walled up, and upon the house of the commandant whom he beheaded may still be read the words"REMEMBER THE 10TH OF MAY, 1631."

Laden with enormous booty the Austrian army quitted the neighbourhood of Magdeburg. On the 17th of September, Gustavus Adolphus gave battle to Tilly before Leipsic and routed him with great slaughter. This victory turned the scale of war. The German princes revived under the stimulating influence of their ally's success. They joined heartily in the war, drove the Austrians from the greater part of their country, took

Hanover and Frankfort-on-the-Maine. Frederick the Palsgrave united himself to the victorious army of Gustavus, hoping to be reinstated by that monarch in his patrimony; but the Swedish king was so much incensed against Charles of England for not joining in the enterprise against Austrian despotism, that although he received the Palsgrave kindly he gave him no immediate hope of restoration.

After this Gustavus rescued Darmstadt, Oppenheim, and Mainz. In the meanwhile the Saxon field-marshal, Von Arnim, invaded Bohemia and captured Prague; the landgrave of Hesse Cassel and Bernard of Weimar defeated Tilly's troops in the lands of the Upper Rhine.

"This sweeping reverse compelled the emperor to recall Wallenstein to the chief command; who, assembling forty thousand men at Zuaim, in Bohemia, marched on Prague and drove the Saxons not only thence, but out of Bohemia altogether. Meantime Gustavus issuing from his winter quarters on the Rhine directed his course to Nuremberg, and so to Dunauworth, and at Rain on the Lech fought with Tilly and the Duke of Bavaria. Tilly was killed, and Gustavus advanced and took Augsburg in April, and Munich in May, and after in vain attacking Wallenstein before Nuremberg he encountered him at Lutzen in Saxony, and beat him, but fell himself at the hour of victory. He had, however, saved Protestantism. Wallenstein lost favour after his defeat, was suspected by the emperor, and finally assassinated by his own officers. The generals of Gustavus, under the orders of Gustavus's great minister, Oxenstjerna, continued the contest and enabled the German Protestant princes to establish their power and the exercise of their religion, at the peace of Westphalia in 1648."

The peace which was signed at Westphalia at the termination of the thirty years' war comprised three distinct treaties. The first between Spain and the United Provinces, which proclaimed the complete independence of the Netherlands. The second between France and Austria. It stipulated for liberty of conscience for the Protestants, regulated the rights and relations of the Germanic States; gave Alsatia to France, less the imperial city of Strasburg; confirmed it in the possession of the three bishoprics, Toul, Metz, and Verdun; and decreed perpetual peace between France and Rome. The third treaty conferred Pomerania and some other places, besides money, on Sweden for the valuable help rendered throughout the war.